How to break in coupling caps?

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use whatever you have.....

i know of some guy, that used his reciever as a means to burn-in, first he tuned to a blank spot on his fm radio, so that only noise is heard, then he connected his caps where the speakers are instead....

2 to 3 days did it....

set the volume lever a tad bit low before replaceing your speakers with those caps...
 
I ask about a load cause I are "A rank novice with electronics".

Will there be a sonic different if I use a 40 watt or 100 watt light bulb? :)

Best
Bob

It's been some years since I was a ham, but don't they still have theory tests?:D

If there is a break-in effect (which I seriously doubt and for which zero evidence exists), the application of voltage should be sufficient. Use your bulbs to illuminate the world instead.
 
Dunno OT' been a few decades since I took a test.

I'm figurin that if there a break in, no sense having caps I will probably use sometime just sitting in their box gathering dust. Usin a light bulb seemed light a bright idea to me.

The idea of just caps across an AC cord gives me the creeps.

Guess I could just wire them up and put them in a power supply?

73
Bob
 
Let's look at the numbers and see if you should feel creeped out.

0.22uF at 60Hz has an impedance of about 12k. With a 120V line, that's 10mA. Power is then 1.2W, which doesn't seem like much for your mains to handle. The power dissipated in the cap will be the ESR (that's in the milliohms) times the square of the current. I'll let you do the math- it's really, really minuscule.

(ex-WA3KHZ)
 
Clarification just to be anal:

The cap will 'provide' reactive volt-amps in the amount of 1.2 VAr. There is no dissipation with this quantity, no power, no watts; it's purely reactive. Essentially it is non-lossy current flowing to and from the capacitor every cycle.

The power dissipated, in units of watts, will be essentially immeasurable with a quality teflon capacitor (as SY stated, ESR is small). Your residential utility meter will have no idea what is going on, even after years of burn-in.

There is still some concern about a failed capacitor shorting the line, so a tiny little fuse doesn't hurt, maybe 1A or less. If one is silly enough to go touching things, SY has previously suggested using an isolation transformer as belt and suspenders.
 
Connecting the capacitors directly to the mains sounds seriously risky to me.

The steady-state is fine, but unless you're really lucky the mains voltage won't be zero at the instant you connect the capacitor.

Attempting to charge a capacitor instantaneously to e.g. 150V is going to cause a huge current spike.

Also, mains isn't a nice clean sine wave - there's a lot of junk in there that could have fast rise times, not to mention the occasional kilovolt spike.

I reckon adding a series resistor to protect the caps would be smart.
 
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